From France, great double-disc set of noisy improvisations and spicy goop from two personal favourite gronksters, Romain Perrot, the naive genius idiot savant of modern urban blues guitar and excessive feedback noise, and Quentin Rollet, the sax blaster who’s honked with just about every notable player in his own country, and en plus has appeared on records by Nurse With Wound and Red Krayola, it says here. Le Vieux Fusible (REQORDS REQ010) is eight all-new studio tracks laid down in the concrete bunker in 2021 – all one one dank day in November, it seems – and the pair blended into a many-limbed monster as they seized synths, drum machines, guitars, saxes, and anything else that came within reach.
The headline selling-point devised by the publicity machine is “Albert Ayler meets Throbbing Gristle” or words to that effect, but the lasting achievement here is not just the exciting textures and despondent electric howls (stimulating though they be), but rather the honest exploration of emotions and feelings which only the bravest dare face when they behold their inner visages staring back every day from the mirror of truth. Existence can be slow and painful on occasions, but here’s how to drag your carcase across the concrete parking lot while dodging the bullets of the drug dealers – just listen to any one of these grim howlers and hurlements, sonic updates on the philosophy of Debord, Sartre and Camus. It’s some way from the impassioned “noise wall” monstrosities which Perrot used to unleash as Vomir, but he’s grown into a much more nuanced carpenter of sound, hammering in steel nails with assurance and building a copper submarine to submerge to a hidden location.
Buy now and you get a second disc The Singles, which collects a bunch of zippy items originally dating from 2018 to 2021, which came out as lathe-cuts and three-inch CDs – plus a 23-minute live gash-fest with guest player Richard Francès (dit Acid Fountain). These singles are even more demented and wild than the brother disc, if such be possible, indicating there was much mayhem and craziness to be exorcised during these bleak years. Much blood and sweat across the tiles and carpet, for sure. I like the incoherent gabbling exhibited on ‘Brain’, though you may prefer the wild squawkfest that is ‘La Troisieme’, or the ultra-bleak interminable drone of futility to be found in the iron walls of ‘Vengance’. Powerful – cathartic – visceral. As to that live cut ‘Tranchée’, it apparently took place in a secret spot in Paris – much the best way, you’ll agree – and the brooding negative power emanating from the synth elements alone is enough to kill vermin. In the intervals of this hateful event, our two stars take the opportunity to wield guitar and sax in the mould of Derek Bailey and Evan Parker, and the wheels soon start to spin off the handcart. Binding together all these diverse musical actions is the core belief in the power of spontaneity, a shared confidence in the unplanned creative act, living in the moment and set down without qualification or reservation.
An essential collection, presented in a six-panel sleeve decorated with queasy images of digital manipulation, melting typefaces, and sickly colours. A must! (28/02/2023)